HQs of Christmas Past

Merry Christmas!

And Let the Firewood Burn!

A Rather Different Necron

Despite all the buzz concerning Beasts of War's stash of leaked Necron pictures, a little piece of the puzzle seems to have been missed in the ensuing excitement. So dig this. It would appear there is one more special Necron HQ coming our way to lead the metal-heads in war.

I've got to say that it strikes me as a peculiar choice in design considering the style of the new miniatures due to be released soon, but of course that's just my opinion. Judge for yourself if you think it lives up to the standard we've seen with the leaked Necron photos.

Behold, the secret Necron Lord!!

Bleep Bloop Bleep, I'm a Necron!

Ay ay ay... sorry about that. :) I've had that picture for more than a year and could no longer resist. It's from a training mission I set up for my then 7 year old nephew who had become interested in "Whammer Hammer" as he refers to 40k. After pushing around his five Necrons against my five Chaos Marines for a few turns, the lad decided we needed to spice up the game with a couple of heavy hitters. Fortunately his supply of toy robots and monsters provided exactly what we were looking for, including the heartless mechanical overlord seen in the above photograph.

And yes, I lost that game too! After setting up the terrain on my nephew's Thomas-the-Train table, we placed three objectives evenly distributed along the centerline of our gameboard. I held the middle and right-hand objectives for most of the game until being driven away from the center of the table by a brutal assault on the final turn. Oh the humanity, I lost 2-1!

Hmmm... next time I go up against my nephew, I'll be sure to slow-play him!

Did You Hear Something?

"Hey Bill, did you hear something?"

"Um... yes."

"Oh FETH!"

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I've been really busy with my family today and haven't had much time for painting or blogging, hence the random hobby picture this evening. This photograph was taken last Halloween after I celebrated the holiday by painting a set of Plague Zombies which some of you might remember. Even though this picture is one of my favorites, tonight is its diceRolla premier. I know however that at least a few intrepid readers have seen it elsewhere, to whom I apologize for tonight's repeat presentation. :)

Happy painting and gaming!

QuickPic - Hundred Years Project

I just snapped this photo a few minutes ago of some 15mm Hundred Years War miniatures by Corvus Belli. These guys are for my HYW: English army for the fast-play historical wargame, de Bellis Antiquitatis. I have an element of four billmen almost fully painted and ready for basing, after which I'll have finished all of the support and optional pieces for the army. Not too shabby considering it's only taken me, um... 3+ years to get this far. :)

Next up will be six elements of deadly accurate longbowman who form the core of the army. I then plan on painting the three elements of mounted knights and their dismounted counterparts. Finally I'll wrap things up with a camp and possibly a separate element of camp followers, though I might model them as part of the camp itself. Since I'm saving that for last, however, I have plenty of time to think it over.

Happy painting and gaming... goodnight!

Daemons and Dinosaurs

Earlier today I was able to recover a large amount of data from my old computer and so I'm in the mood to celebrate this bit of good fortune. Among the recovered goodies were all of my photographs from this year's trip to Adepticon, and therefore tonight I'd like to share a few of my favorites. First up are a couple of crazy count-as Flamers of Tzeentch followed by a count-as unit of Flesh Hounds. These are from the gorgeous Daemons of Chaos army painted by Jeff Schiltgen for Adepticon's 1000 point "It's How You Use It" tournament. I could be mistaken but I think he won a Player's Choice award for his well painted army and display board.

Unfortunately a lot of my pictures of this army did not turn out very well, being in many cases much too blurry for me to use. The next photograph is itself rather blurry though perhaps not as bad as some of the others. Still I think the unit of Bloodletters is pretty enough to be worth a look despite my shoddy camera work. (I apologize to Jeff for not doing his army justice.)

I spotted this next set of Lizardmen miniatures during a break between games and had to take a few minutes to admire the uber cute approach to modeling Stegadons. While these lumbering beasts may not seem as intimidating as the standard Stegadon model, I think they have a very pleasant and light-hearted charm that you rarely find in wargaming. Unfortunately I forgot to find out the name of the army's owner, though I do remember him being quite generous with his time as I asked questions and took my pictures. If anybody should happen to recognize this army and know the name of its painter, I would happily update this to give him his due credit.

There were of course many other fantastic armies to drool over at Adepticon. However my schedule was primarily filled with gaming this year and so I did not have as much time as before to wander around and take pictures of all the cool miniatures. Although I had a blast playing in the events, in the future I think I would prefer to leave more time unscheduled so that I can take advantage of having so many lovely armies gathered in one place. It's a great opportunity to be inspired and see some amazing works of art.

Happy painting and gaming!

QuickPic - Lord of the Feast

Today I unpacked my Hordes miniatures for the first time after the move and was relieved to see that all of them held up quite well to the jostling. A couple of smaller pieces popped off of one of the unpainted Cyclops Savages but otherwise everyone appears to be in good condition. Phew! Also I noticed a few areas here and there that will need touching up but again it doesn't look like it will take much to fix 'em.

So after inspecting all the models I couldn't help but play around a little and take some pictures of them. Even though he's been seen on this blog a few other times, this Lord of the Feast is still one of my favorite minis to photograph. I hope you don't mind me posting him again, I kind of like the way this one turned out.

Hmm... I wonder what he's pointing at.

Oh well, goodnight!

Incomprehensibly Tough Competition

After stopping by my LGS a few days ago for what was likely my last visit, I am forced to admit that I have not given the 40k scene there the proper consideration or respect that it deserves. I now believe that my soon to be former LGS can in fact boast of having the toughest competition of any game store in the world. Need proof? Check out this sign-up sheet I spotted for an upcoming 1850 point tournament they will soon be hosting:

That's right, both Chuck Norris AND Bruce Lee have signed up to compete! Who would have ever guessed that my humble LGS would host the most epic confrontation in the history of table top gaming, if not that of all humankind? And you just know those guys are total WAACs, too. ;) I'm not sure about his skill as a 40k player but I'd say Springsteen is a lock for third place and the Players' Choice award. I mean really, who's going to give The Boss a bad sportsmanship score? (Uh, besides Julianne Philips, that is.)

Considering the dramatic rise in competition at my LGS, I am a little sad that I won't be able to play in this tournament, nor even be in attendance to witness what will surely be a battle for the ages. The reason for this is that I am officially moving to Asheville, North Carolina a mere two weeks from today... hooray! No more speculation or hopeful optimism, this time around everything has been confirmed and it's truly a done deal. We will be moving into our new place on June 2nd so unfortunately I expect that I will be too busy even for the colossal Norris v. Lee showdown scheduled for next weekend.

Preparing for my family's move to NC has been the main cause of my recent decline in blogging, as well as my overall lack of hobby time over the past two weeks. Since my previous post I've picked up my paintbrush just one other time before doing so again earlier tonight to work a little more on Captain Homer. I'd like to finish him and a few other small projects before I have to finally pack away the last of my hobby gear, though I am not terribly concerned should I end up having only a minimum of painting time for the rest of the month.

Nonetheless I will try to post at least a few more times before then. Tonight I just wanted to provide a little update on what I've been doing and to offer an explanation for my absence from the blog. I've been really busy but I am so excited about moving that it has been very much worth all the associated hassles. I hope all of you are doing quite well too, goodbye for now!

Gratuitous Puppy Photos

Hello and welcome to a special birthday edition of diceRolla. That's right, folks, today I turned 34 years old... woo-hoo! It's been a great day for me and I've had a blast visiting with friends and family. I'm putting together a hobby-related post for tomorrow but right now I just want to share some pictures of the newest member of my family, a puppy dog named Charlie! As an early birthday present from my wife, last week we went to the animal shelter and adopted the little guy. He's super sweet, loves to snuggle, and gets along extremely well with our daughter and two cats, although he does seem slightly intimidated by one of the kitties.

Awwww, he's such a good puppy! I haven't had a canine companion in twenty or so years and did not realize how much I had missed the experience. With a toddler already in the house it's been close to nonstop mayhem but tremendous fun, too. :)

Okay, that's all for now. I need to take Charlie for a walk and will then get back to work on those Dark Elves. Goodnight, everybody!

Tie-thulu

Something for you fashionable antiquarians...

A sharp-eyed tipster sent me this link to the original (I suppose) version by jeremywc. Thanks for the laughs, buddy. :)

I'm working on Dark Elves tonight though nothing much to show for it yet. No more time for blogging, it's back to the glue and hobby knives for me. I hope everyone is having a good week so far, bye!

Citadel Woods Finished

Even though it took me a couple weeks longer to finish painting this group of Citadel Woods than I'd originally planned, I am still very happy and am quite satisfied with how they turned out. So much so that I decided to have some fun taking pictures of them today. I painted the miniatures seen in the following photos at least 15 years ago, but the trees were not finished until 3am this morning. Actually before going to bed I went to put my new terrain pieces away and promptly dropped two trees, snapping off a number of branches and breaking a few leaves. It was therefore another hour before I had everything repaired which made for an exciting conclusion to my late night hobby session.

I love this terrain kit! I think Games Workshop did a fantastic job on it and I look forward to working on my next batch of Citadel Woods perhaps sometime in the coming weeks, though likely not until the new year considering all the projects I'm juggling. I have another three sets of Woods still unassembled which I will paint in the same fashion as these. I like this scenery so much, however, that I now would like to eventually get a couple more kits to be painted as burned up sections of forest that have seen heavy fighting. I think that would introduce some nice variety to the collection and would look pretty cool as well.

That's all for later, though. Regarding the matter at hand, here are some pictures of my newly completed terrain pieces:

Citadel Woods #1

Citadel Woods #2

Citadel Woods #3

A surprise encounter.

"Look out, he's right behind you!"

"Artillery's hard work, lads, so be grateful for the shade."

The garrison was alert for any potential threats...

... but they still didn't stand a chance.

"Hi, I'm a wizard. I wear sensible shoes."

All the [miniature] world's a stage...

These trees were a real joy to paint and it's nice knowing that they'll be of use no matter how much jumping I do from one army project to another. I'm not sure what this coming week will be like for my hobby activities as Thanksgiving is on Thursday, but I will nonetheless endeavor to get in as much hobby time as RealLife allows. If you can't tell by my choice of subject matter in tonight's photos, I've had Warhammer Fantasy on my mind recently so that will likely receive a fair share of my attention.

That's all for tonight... happy painting and gaming, everyone!

Gratitude! Mystery! Simpsons! DICE!!!

I'm very happy to report about a really amazing surprise that showed up on my doorstep yesterday. Inside an innocent looking box addressed to yours truly, I found a four-pack of Duff Beer cans. What's this, then? Even more exciting, upon closer inspection I discovered that it was in fact a set of 20 custom Simpsons dice!

WOOOO-HOOOO!!!

The facings are as follows: Homer - 6, Barney - 5, Carl - 4, Lenny - 3, Moe - 2, Duffman - 1 (labeled as W on the die for "Wild"). So it looks like in most cases I'll want to see lots of Homers, except for those Leadership checks when I need the courage only Duff can provide. Perfect, just perfect!

I have a fascination for odd or unusual dice and I've never seen any Simpson dice before. Also I enjoy trying to find a matching set of dice for each new army so this will be the official dice for my Drones of Sector 7G/Blisstonian 9th project. I can also use them for my Stonecutters, and the Emperor's Isotopes as well should I ever get around to making any of them, though I still plan on eventually ordering some chapter-specific dice from Chessex for those armies. But I had no idea what to do for the Blisstonians and was quite distressed over the matter, so this timely arrival nicely resolves that dilemma, and in style too.

Oh yeah, not only is this a super cool set of dice, it seems like Duff Dice, "The Lyin' Dice Game," should be a pretty fun game itself. For two to four players. Groovy.

Looking around the box and shipping papers, however, I see no indication as to who sent this set of Duff Dice to me. It's now been a day since the package showed up and my sleuthing attempts have not turned up anyone I know claiming responsibility, and it would seem I have a true mystery on my hands. Could it be that one of my dear readers was so kind as to surprise me with an awesome Simpsons gift? Well, it's not impossible....

Therefore, in case the anonymous gift-giver should happen to see this post, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you. Thank you so very much. This was such a thoughtful, fun surprise. You really made my day!

Best. Dice. Ever.

Thank you.

The Horror of Many Clauses

I'm still working away at the urban terrain for Sector 7G and will take some pictures tomorrow to document the progress I've made these past few days. In addition to detailing a couple of pieces, I could not resist and have started assembling another double-sized building. Also I should be getting my new painting desk tomorrow afternoon so I'm sure I'll want to report on that as well. For now, though, I'd like to indulge in a short bit of literary fun.

Earlier today I saw a post at Enormous Noise which introduced me to the website I Write Like. You can submit a sample of text at the site for analysis and are then told which famous author's style of writing resembles your own. Upon submitting the previous post from my blog, this was the result:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

As much of a fan as I am of his writing, I don't know if this is all that complimentary. It does however confirm something for me that I've long suspected, that my writing style is indeed clunky and awkward, often confusing and appealing to only a very small number of people. I started reading Lovecraft when I was about twelve years old and I've wondered over the years how much of his stilted formalism rubbed off on me, or if instead that's just what comes natural to me and thus struck a sympathetic chord when reading his works. It does seem appropriate at least that less than a week ago that I turned my Followers section into an admittedly lame Lovecraft joke.

This certainly does not bode well for any of you when I start posting my own background fluff. You have been warned....

Less Than 12 Hours Left

I got my copy of the Warhammer rulebook yesterday and oh my gaaaaahd, it's freaking huge! The book is absolutely beautiful and very well done, but as a gaming reference it strikes me as rather impractical. Not too big of deal if you already plan on buying The Island of Blood set but certainly frustrating for gamers on a budget. Games Workshop has definitely succeeded in making another high quality product, I just hope they've not created too much of a sticker-shock barrier for new people considering taking up the hobby. Nonetheless, the bibliophile in me rejoices at the sight of such a lavish tome and I think it's cool that so much attention was given to the hobby and background sections. I have happily spent much of the last day looking at all the pretty pictures and skimming through random bits of text as it will probably be sometime before I'm ready to begin digesting the rules themselves. It really is such a nice book that I want to take my time exploring and enjoying the material within... at a cost of about 75 dollars, I think it deserves to be savored awhile before turning to its more utilitarian purposes.

Okay, nothing much going on here otherwise. Just wanted to post a little reminder about the giveaway I'm doing tomorrow for those of you who have not yet entered. To those of you who have already signed up for a chance to win those Warriors of Chaos dudes, thank you very much as I am really excited to have the opportunity to give this collection of miniatures to one of you. I've been cleaning up more of the house and found some packets of WoC bits that I ordered to bulk up a few units, the plan having been to make use of leftover arms and such from the other box sets I'd bought. So in addition to the items mentioned in my previous post, the winner will also receive a single horse from the Marauder Horsemen kit plus 5 sets of Marauder Horsemen bodies, shields, and left arms. Also included in the prize package are eight sets of Warriors of Chaos torsos and capes, right arms, and heads to allow for even more enemy-chopping fun.

I've decided to put a deadline for entry on this contest just to make sure I don't run into any last minute troubles. Therefore to be eligible to win, Followers of this blog need to leave a comment on the original post by tomorrow at 8:00 AM (EST) letting me know that you want to be included in the drawing. At the time of writing there remains a little more than eleven hours to have a shot at winning this new Warriors of Chaos army. If you're not already playing a Chaos army, there's enough here to get a big start with them. And if you don't play Warhammer Fantasy, here's a chance to get an army to help introduce you to the game. So come on and sign up.

Hey, Win Some Stuff

Sorry I haven't posted anything here in quite a long time. For the last several weeks I've not been able to get any time for hobby stuff other than reading the occasional game book, most notably the Malifaux rulebook and the Bretonnian army book. (Malifaux was interesting and looks like fun, and while the Bretonnia book is certainly nice, I think it's showing its age a bit.) Not being able to paint has been frustrating but I'm hopeful that I'll soon be back at. All the home remodeling projects are finally complete and my Father's Day gift from my wife was a yet-to-be-picked-out hobby desk. For more than two years now I've kept all my gaming and painting junk portable and packed up when not in use due to life being something of a whirlwind. Therefore the prospect of having somewhere I can safely leave my projects overnight is very exciting for me. Even if my painting does not improve, I'm pretty sure my productivity will as I've managed to set a rather low baseline for myself these past few months.

Okay, enough of the non-update update. Now for the winning of things. I'm very grateful for those of you who have signed up as Followers of this blog and I appreciate your contributions to it. You've made this a much more enjoyable experience for me. So as a way of saying thanks I thought it would be cool to pass on to one of you an army project I know I'll never have time to work on myself. To celebrate the release of the new edition of Warhammer a little more than one week from now, I'd like to give away the selection of Warriors of Chaos boxed sets and blister packs pictured above. On Saturday, July 10th, I'll randomly select one of the Followers who have commented on this post (all you need to do is let me know you're interested in having a shot at the prize) and then I'll announce the winner that day at 8pm EST. Simple, right?

Here's a list of what the winner will receive:

WoC Battalion

Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount

Sorcerer of Chaos

Nurgle Chaos Sorcerer

Warriors of Chaos (boxed set with 12 guys)

Chaos Marauder Horsemen

Chaos Warriors (the one with 3 guys)

Chaos Knights

3 Chaos Trolls (one of each pose)

A long time ago I was gung-ho about cranking out this army and getting it on the table, but life intervened and this project kept getting shoved further and further down the priority list. Eventually the enthusiasm was gone and last summer I realized that I was no longer even interested in hanging on to them, but I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do with the evil little bastards. With the new version of Warhammer only days away this seems like as good a time as any to find a new warlord to lead them, so hopefully at least one of you will want to give these savages a happy home and take them off my hands.

Thanks again for taking an interest in my quiet little niche of the interwebs. I'm confident that things will get (mildly?) more interesting around here soon.

Going from 1 to 10

I saw a link today at The 25mm Warrior to a funny quiz complements of dicepool.com. It's got 20 multiple choice questions to answer a very pressing question for us gamers. What polyhedral die are you? For me at least the result proved to be surprising insightful. So if you wonder how many faces you would have in die-form, follow the link below.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

"You are a d10: You are analytical, rational, and logical. You see the world around you as a succession of problems that can only be navigated via insightful and elegant solutions. You insist on precision are often forced to waste valuable time correcting others. Your attention to detail is extraordinary, and will sometimes focus all your attention on details that others consider unimportant. You are not so interested in doing the right thing, as you are in finding the best way to do it. In other words, you're a complete nerd."

I've been called a nerd before, but now even a computer is calling me one. Great.

Resting Panda

After spending so much time at Adepticon learning from some awesome painters, I decided that I wanted to start doing a few pieces solely for display and the sheer enjoyment of painting. I have no illusions about my skill level, nor do I have any desire for competing. I am interested, however, in taking the occasional break from army painting to try out different things and just have fun. This feels very liberating for me as I had become quite narrowly focused over the years on painting only for the purpose of gaming. I appreciate the almost limitless range of possibilities offered by this other aspect of the hobby and I'm grateful to have an excuse to check out the quirky, more obscure manufacturers' lines of models. When I first started painting miniatures they were all just random figures that I had picked out simply because they looked cool. I think it is a welcome return for me to this earlier approach to painting.

So after four terrible days spent in Fayetteville, NC for a wedding I was going to freak out if I didn't paint something soon. I had anticipated this and primed Sad Panda by Dark Sword Miniatures before leaving town, but was then too exhausted to work on him the night we got back home. I did most of the painting on him the next night and just had to do the bedroll, hat, and flocking the following evening. Overall I'm happy with how he turned out but I am not satisfied with the snow flocking. It looks alright but still rather fake and I now understand why so many people mix up their own concoctions of the stuff. I just used Woodland Scenics snow flock glued directly onto greenstuff painted white and it reminds me of those cheap Christmas displays you see in department stores. Oh well, I'm not planning on doing anything with snow anytime soon so no big deal.

I do like the way the water turned out, especially as that was the first time I've poured resin in probably six or more years. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be frozen or just chilly but I like it nonetheless. Also the bamboo staff was fun but researching it was frustrating. No matter how many pictures I looked at I still had no idea how to paint that effect, so I winged it and just made something up. I like the result even if it doesn't make sense. So long as I avoid any botanists I should be in the clear. The absolute best part of this quick project though had to have been the google image search for panda bears.... Awwwww. That in itself was enough justification for me.

Sorry about the shadows and crappy photos. I hope to get a light box thingy set up sometime after the remodeling turmoil has quieted a bit. I've renamed this one Resting Panda at the request of my wife, who was happy I finally painted something that isn't scary, mean or gross. I've accumulated a bunch of random and odd minis so there's plenty more to work on in the future when I need a short break. Maybe I'll have learned how to take a decent photo by the time I paint another.

Okay, I feel refreshed... time now for some marines!